


Hanging by a Moment

by cat_77



Category: Prodigal Son (TV 2019)
Genre: Bombing, Gen, Strangulation, Team as Family, injuries, the Whitly family being the Whitly family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-11
Updated: 2021-01-11
Packaged: 2021-03-16 06:40:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 8,283
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28702314
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cat_77/pseuds/cat_77
Summary: Five times the team (or family) was left hanging, and the rescues provided by those not caught up in the case.
Relationships: Malcolm Bright & team
Comments: 10
Kudos: 43





	1. Dani

The latest string of murders were all very clearly related just as they were all very clearly inspired by a deck of tarot cards. Even if the killer had not literally left a card from the deck at each site, it would have been fairly obvious. The deck itself was fairly standard and looked even to be just the Rider Waite available from nearly every local book store let alone occult shop, which left Malcolm to question if there truly were any occult ties or if the killer just liked the symbolism of it all. The rest of the team just grumbled at the lack of a lead it provided.

The first card had been Judgement, with Carter Elias posed with a trumpet and clumsy feathered wings complete with dolls that represented his wife and children in tiny boxes beneath him. The family was taken into protective custody as a precaution, and it had been discovered Carter had been involved in some truly shady medical practices that were probably the source of the inspiration to his fate.

Next came The Sun, with Johnathan Wright very artfully, and very nakedly, displayed on a white carousel horse, complete with a flag in one hand. Above him hung a large orange heat lamp decked out with spires. It turned out that his laboratory – the same as shown on the flag – had performed precursor experiments that had led to Elias’ own later attempts, which at least gave them a tie-in.

After that was The Moon, this time with Josephine Vialas strung up on another heat lamp, this one defunct, with two starving and possibly rabid stray dogs tied to pillars below her. She had been Wright’s lab partner and Elias’ mistress, so yet another tie. Also, he rather hoped the dogs were not a sign of what the experiments had involved.

Finally, there was The Star. No heat lamp this time, just Eliza Dupree stripped bare save for a long blonde wig. Heavy, cement-filled jugs in each hand weighed her down face first into a manmade stream at an arboretum. He wasn’t sure if the star itself was to be the artful top of the arboretum above her, or the shiny thumb tacks that had been pressed into the deceased woman’s forehead.

Dupree had called them only the day prior as she had suspected her husband was involved. He was a botanist who had been quite disgruntled that some very specific strain of a flower Bright had not previously heard of had been stolen and used as a key ingredient in the experiments. She claimed it was far too specific to be anyone but him as he had bred the strain himself before his partner sold it for use, and she was not wrong. However, the timing could have been better as they came upon him as he was preparing the scene for his next victim, likely the partner who had also been taken into protective custody.

They had him trapped, but he managed to flip a switch to some elaborate setup and, the next thing they knew, Dani was swept off her feet, a noose of a knot yanked tight against her left ankle as she hung upside down nearly three stories off the ground. The card that fluttered to the mosaic where she had stood was The Hanged Man and, being held by a single foot, she mimicked it well even without the rest of the props in play. Gil and JT handled Jason Dupree while Bright tried to figure out just how to get her down without permanent damage.

“ESU is still about twenty minutes out due to a major accident,” Gil advised once Dupree was in cuffs.

“She’ll pass out before then,” Bright warned. “The longer she’s up there, the longer the risk of damage.” He looked closer at the set up and found only a quick release that would leave her careening down at far too great a speed to not result in disaster. Unless…

“Is there a ladder or something we could use?” JT asked as he searched for precisely that.

“No, but I think I found a way?” he offered. The heavy rope was coiled on a spool that was wound tight. If he grabbed hold of the rope and someone hit the release, they could lower Dani in a far more controlled manner. JT would be best to be there to catch and/or guide her as needed. He explained this to the others, and maybe ignored the part where it was extremely dependent on him bracing himself correctly and his hands not slipping as his own weight was not quite enough to counterbalance Powell’s with that much gravity and soon to be momentum on her side. 

JT stood at the ready and Malcolm prepared the best that he could, hands tight around the rope. Gil hit the release that was rigged on the far side of the room and Bright damned near flew up in the air himself before he got his feet hooked around something stable. He kept his grip though and, aside from a rough jerk of release and maybe half a second of being lowered at a far more accelerated rate than he intended, he maintained his control and started the process of lowering his partner and friend in a way that would not crack her skull in two. 

Gil was at his side as quickly as he could make it back, having to pause to threaten Dupree who tried to bolt, cuffs and all, while they were distracted. Soon enough, JT had Dani by the shoulders and tilted her to the side to relieve some of the pressure and hopefully stop her from passing out entirely. Once he called clear, Malcolm and Gil released their hold on the rope and let the series of counterweights crash to the ground.

He bent over to catch his breath and accepted Gil’s literal pat on the back and praise, right up until the good lieutenant spotted his torn and abraded palms. “Gloves, kid. Ever heard of them?”

Malcolm rather doubted his cashmere-lined thin calfskin usuals would have withstood the rope any better than his palms did, not to mention there was the chance they would have cost him his grip, but he took the ribbing in the good nature it was intended. A few hours later found his hands wrapped, Powell on crutches for minimum a week, and Dupree in a cell. All in all, he counted it as a win.


	2. Gil

The chase had ended up on the rooftop, which was a new point of view if nothing else. High above the usual hustle and bustle of New York, there was nowhere to go, their suspect well and truly trapped.

Gilbert Covil, thirty-five, a business manager for one of the investment firms based in that very building. It turned out that he had a hobby of not just beating the opposition, but literally beating them, as in to death. Five victims so far, and there would have been a sixth except for some medical heroics that saved the day and left a witness alive enough to give a description and possible name. The name had been off, but the description was spot on. When mixed with the remaining evidence, it was enough for a warrant to bring Covil in for questioning if nothing else.

Covil had objected to that proposition and reminded them of yet another hobby of his: triathlons. He bolted from his office and hit the stairs. There were uniformed officers stationed there on the off chance he tried precisely that, but only one at the stairway entrance and another handful on the way down under the assumption he would head that way for his escape. 

He must have spotted the others and not wanted to take his chances running that particular gauntlet, so he chose another one. He took out the first officer with a push that left him bruised and rather wobbly half a flight down, and then rushed upwards instead. JT had no idea why he would choose that of all routes as he was known for his logical, if ambitious, deals. Then again, he clearly had at least two facets to his life, and must have flipped to the second one fueled by pure adrenaline, rage, and a distinct lack of logical thought. Or at least that’s what Bright reasoned when he caught up to them.

Regardless, they had him. He was cornered against the lip that led to a thirty-three story drop. He reluctantly held up his hands in defeat and Arroyo approached him with the cuffs. It was when he started to turn around to have those cuffs actually placed upon his person that he made his move.

He grabbed Gil by the lapels of his jacket and tugged him down as his knee went up and connected with his sternum. JT could hear the wheeze it caused even over the rush of the wind at their current height, but Gil moved to tackle him anyway. There was no way for JT or Dani to get a shot with the way they grappled, so JT holstered his piece and rushed to help their boss.

A boss that was bodily tossed over the side.

They all froze for a moment at that, and then paused again in disbelief as Covil readily launched himself over the side as well. JT recovered first and ran to the lip of the building in time to watch Covil steady himself on a window washing swing left barely a story down. He released the rigging and let it sail down another dozen floors or so, stopping before he reached the bottom with the waiting officers, and then jumped over to the top of a skyway to take off again.

He figured someone else could sort that out because the boss was far more important. The boss who lay half on and half off a bit of masonry about three stories down. The boss who managed to huff and pant and groan and pull himself the rest of the way on top of that masonry, and then clutch to the brickwork because the piece really was not that wide.

“You okay?” JT called down to him.

“Not at all,” Arroyo shouted back. There were no real grips, no handholds, and definitely no staircase or ladder to use for either them to get to him or him to climb his way back up.

“Fire is coming with a ladder truck,” Dani offered as she pocketed her phone. She looked like he felt, grateful for the save yet cloaked with the disbelief of what they had just witnessed.

“Is now when I tell you that this piece is cracked?” Gil grunted. “Either from me landing on it or age, but definitely not up to code, or at least up to a grown adult standing on it.”

JT swore, and quite colorfully at that, before he offered, “We might need to get to him before Fire gets their ladder in place. Options?”

Bright’s brain was already working at a mile a minute on possible scenarios, but none seemed plausible when he actually put words to them. Not until he looked back over the side at his mentor clinging to relatively smooth façade for everything he was worth. He turned to JT, who had the same thought at the same time. “I have a bad idea,” they both said, and then rushed to bring that bad idea to fruition.

The window washing swing was surprisingly difficult to maneuver into place. It probably barely took a thought for a trained professional, but neither Bright nor he had any experience with such things and Dani’s frantic use of Google on her phone was their best shot. They managed to haul it up to be almost level with Arroyo around the time a few sections of concrete began to crack in worrying ways. It would have been best to get it directly under him, but neither trusted themselves to move the truss and grips over and lock them back into place correctly while a life was literally on the line.

Arroyo carefully shuffled over to his right and reached out to tug on one of the lines with a dubious look that more than shared his feelings on the matter. With a deep breath, he let go of the smooth surface that wasn’t really doing much to steady him anyway and grabbed the line with both hands. He swung himself up and over and, finally, manage to get both feet on the caged board. He glared up at them when the swing as a whole dropped an extra inch or three from the added weight, but they made sure everything was as stable as possible on their end and hoped for the best.

An eternity of seconds passed before enough other officers joined them on the roof. It seemed fairly obvious that it would be easier to lift him the few stories versus drop him the couple of dozen, especially with the boss’s own comments that he would definitely lose his lunch along the way should that be the option chosen. Finally, after what his watch told him was only about twenty minutes from the time they first cornered Covil, Gil was safe and mostly sound and quite obviously happy to be on the solid surface of the roof.

“How’s that lunch, boss?” JT asked when Arroyo lowered himself on visibly shaky legs.

“Debating if it’s going to rise up and answer that question itself,” the older man admitted. He took a breath, then another, and then asked, “What’s the status on Covil?”

“In the wind. Literally,” Dani replied. “We’ve got his house and car locked down, and an APB out on him. It’s only a matter of time,” she promised.

That time was spent forcing Gil to be checked out for his injuries. They were mostly just bruises and some pulled ligaments, but Bright was not above using his mentor’s own lecture that was usually used against himself to make sure he was actually seen by a professional and neither Dani nor JT were going to stop him. By the time he was released from the ER, Covil was safely in custody, for real this time.

“You kept lunch, want to see if you can manage dinner?” JT offered. If it happened to be a way to further watch and catalog any hidden injuries or duress, that was for the team to know and Arroyo to suspect. Based on the look he received, heavily suspect, but the invitation was accepted anyway and they headed off to where Bright reserved a table for four that JT knew for a fact included a bottle of damned good celebratory Scotch. Even if Gil couldn’t have any, the rest of them had earned it for having to watch that shit.


	3. Ainsley

The area was a circus of activity. A new bridge linked to a new sculpture garden was to open down by the river. While not something that would usually garner tons of news coverage, the feel-good aspect of it all was possibly needed after months of horribly increasing crime rates. That, and just who funded the whole thing.

Martin Roberts had been convicted of embezzling over three million dollars from the upstart charitable organization he had founded. It turned out that said founding was a front and always had been. It also turned out that the three million had been publicly earmarked for the medical costs of families hit by a major fire nearly a year before. 

His mother, the indominable Mackenzie Roberts, was outraged. If the Miltons were old money, the Roberts were ancient. She had previously cut him off for something untoward in her mind and felt this had been his retaliation. She had retaliated in turn by personally funding the medical costs, as well as a housing project for those who had been affected. The land she had purchased was beautiful, but unfortunately across the river from things like bus and train stations, so she funded a walkway as well to help connect the families with means to their daily lives.

She had always been a patron of the arts, and had decided to go even one step further once she roped some of her cronies into it. The bridge itself was a gorgeous creation highlighted with wrought iron and all sorts of tiny artistic details. Next to it, on the family side at least, were sculptures created by some of New York’s greats, as inspired by drawings and clay-work of the very children that had been left homeless by the original fire. It was a beautiful tribute, and a total slap in the face to her son.

Malcolm would have been there no matter what. Mrs. Roberts had reached out to his mother after the Taylor wedding disaster, and possibly after her own son’s spectacular media failure, and the two were renewing a tenuous friendship that had been put on hold for decades due to his father. His mother had asked him to accompany her, and both of them were also there to watch Ainsley’s coverage of the events. This was undoubtedly to be followed by the family as a whole be dragged to his mother’s for dinner.

When he spotted his team in the crowd, he suspected something else was at play. Gil was talking in hushed tones to Mrs. Roberts, and Dani and JT were less than subtly scouring the area for something, several uniform officers in their wake.

“What’s going on?” he asked when they came close enough to do so.

It turned out that Martin Roberts had frantically requested an audience with them that morning. The three million he had embezzled was not for his own pockets, but to be paid to what could only generously be called a criminal organization. Said criminal organization was greatly angered at the lack of funds received, and planned to retaliate in a very public manner. When the bomb-sniffing dogs were deployed, Malcolm had a better idea of just what that manner was.

The crowds were being gently but firmly evacuated, and then they needed to try to do the same with the media. Malcolm felt that maybe his sister with her contacts and clout could actually help convince them to at least retreat to a safe distance, so turned to ask her to do just that. Only she had wandered off with her new cameraman to get some establishing shots of the water and the bridge and such. He found her leaning up against one of the wrought iron pieces that continued from the bridge and formed a fence against the drop-off to the water below. 

“Hey, Ains!” he called as he approached. He figured they could mute the shot if need be and that getting her attention was far more important. And he did get it. She turned to face him just long enough to frown in his direction before the world around them exploded.

Afterimages of white flashed before his eyes and his ears still rang as he forced himself to his feet. When he could somewhat make out the world around him again, he found panicked crowds, a lot of screams, and a distinct lack of his sister.

He rushed towards the river to find large sections of the fence either hanging loose or completely gone and his heart filled with dread as he skidded to a stop where he knew she had last stood. He gazed over the side and let out a breath he hadn’t realized he had been holding. There, clinging to chunks of rock and dirt and the plethora of cables and lines from the various news trucks, was his sister. She was covered in soot and there was a small dribble of blood on her head, and she looked well and truly pissed as her bare feet dug for purchase.

“Ainsley! Hold on!” he shouted down to her. She was a good ten feet below him at least, but it was a far greater drop to the rushing and churning water below.

“What do you think I’m trying to do?” she hollered back at him.

She swung slightly to the right and grabbed a hold of one of the thick cables to steady herself. More dirt crumbed against her fingertips, and the cable itself slid a few inches from her effort. “Someone hold those things steady! They are the only things keeping her from falling!” he called to anyone and everyone around him.

There was a commotion behind him and he really hoped it was the people nearby doing what he requested and not just her cameraman zooming in. His sister was never one to sit around and wait to be rescued, and started to try to climb back up. Physically, he knew she would normally be capable of the task though the fall and clear injury already made the circumstances less than standard. Rationally, he knew it would be less constant strain on her arms and shoulders, but he also feared it was the far less stable option and would send her careening to the water below, much like yet another section of fence about fifteen feet down from him. He searched for options, handholds maybe, and found several almost flat places of dubious stability between him and her.

“There’s a ledge three feet to your left and about a foot above you!” he advised when yet another clump of dirt slipped through her grasp. She grunted in acknowledgement and reached upwards towards the new goal. “No, a little… another two inches… yeah, now left…” he directed.

“You are not helping!” she shouted back as more debris sprinkled down into her face. She followed his instructions anyway, and soon found herself with one hand on the ledge and the other still tangled around the cords for support. She bodily hauled herself upwards and managed to fit one foot and most of her other toes on the tiny bit of rock. Her left hand fisted in the dirt, and her right shifted against the cables for a better hold.

He whipped off his jacket and laid down on his stomach, head and arms over the edge. “You’re doing great, Ains,” he promised. “Just hold on, we’ll figure out a way to get to you.”

There was a presence at his side and he heard the familiar voice of JT as he cursed, “Ah, hell, it’s the sister.” 

There was more, but he ignored it over the sound of one of the cables snapping and sailing over the side. Ainsley managed to let go in time, but it yanked against the remaining lines enough to possibly risk them following suit. She maneuvered more of her weight onto the rock instead and they both let out a sigh of relief.

The sigh turned to a gasp when the rock began to tilt at an alarming angle. “Mal, I don’t think it’s going to hold,” she warned. She tried so hard to keep her voice calm and level, use her newscaster voice as Gil called it, but he could see the panic in her eyes.

He shifted as far forward as he dared and reached downward. She stretched upwards, and their fingertips just barely brushed. Not enough. He wasn’t enough. He shifted again, but the ground beneath him began to shift with him. There was the echo of profanity and then hands on his legs, bruising with their grip, as JT did his best to anchor him in place.

He watched as the rock tilted more and more, as his sister scrambled for a hold that wasn’t there, as their hands fell short of their goals. She no longer tried to hide her emotions and he feared this was the last time he would see her, eyes wide, a goodbye on her lips.

And then she jumped.

She launched herself upwards as the last of the rocky ledge slipped free beneath her feet and managed to latch on to just above his wrists. His shoulders protested the action, but he held on for all he was worth. She dug her feet in against the rock to try to take some of the strain away, and then walked those feet upwards as JT slowly but surely managed to drag them both back far enough for several others to reach down the rest of the way and grab her.

Free and safe, she flopped down gracelessly beside him. He rolled over to his back and was joined by a still huffing JT. “This family…” the detective muttered as he tried to catch his breath.

“That’s what I say, repeatedly,” a new voice joined in. Gil crouched down beside them all and asked, “You guys okay? Anything serious we need to know about?”

Ainsley pushed herself upright onto shaky arms, so Malcolm did the same. In a rare act of sisterly love, she gripped him tight and buried her face against his neck for a moment. When she eventually pulled herself back, she ignored the filth and scratches and everything else to complain, “My manicure is toast and I lost my shoes.”

“I’ll buy you new ones,” Malcolm promised her, and yanked her back in for another too-tight hug.

“They were nice shoes. This season’s Louboutin’s. Perfect for this outfit,” she grumbled. She glanced down at the snags and tears and streaks of everything else and pouted, “What’s left of this outfit.”

“I’ll buy you a new outfit too,” he added with a roll of his eyes.

Anything else was lost in the crushing grip of their mother when she broke free of where Dani had been holding her back. Everyone was escorted further to safety, away from the drop-off and away from where the bomb squad had only found the one device. Mrs. Roberts was horrified, Mr. Roberts turned state’s evidence against his erstwhile ties, and the Whitly family made the news yet again. At least this time it was for something more positive than the ties to multiple murders.

Three days later had JT coming into the precinct in a daze. He sat down across from Bright and shook his head. “Are you aware that your mother just delivered pretty much an entire nursery? Tally’s trying to figure out where everything is supposed to go. There’s an entire crew waiting on her.”

Now it was his turn to shake his head. He hadn’t known about that. He did, however, know about the trust fund for college costs, but figured now might not be the best time to mention it. “Family,” he said instead. “What are you going to do?”


	4. JT

For a change, it was not Malcolm that caught and injured. It was JT.

They had split up at the latest crime scene to cover more area in less time, trusting the officers with them to keep watch over Edrisa and her crew. JT had reported in a noise and a possible suspect from where he was at the loading dock to the commercial building. He had even started a formal request for backup when there was a cacophony of noise over the line. Several thuds, some shouts, the distinct echo of a gunshot, and then an unholy screech of sound that they later discovered was likely the radio being destroyed.

Bright had noticed a delivery van speeding away with its occupants still trying to close the doors via one of the large first floor windows, the distinct form of his teammate slumped in the back. He made it to the docks only moments after Gil and Dani had, the former cursing loudly and trying to rattle off a description of what he had seen. Unfortunately, Gil had only caught a glimpse of the back of the truck and Dani none at all. When combined with Bright’s own description and a partial license plate, they at least had a sizable lead to go on.

Six hours and a lot of detective work and profiling later led them to a decrepit warehouse that appeared to house primarily tetanus and rats more than any actual shippable product. Another twenty minutes of systematic searching led them to a small receiving area where the only things being received were punches and possible cracked or broken bones as two very large men threw punch after punch at his teammate.

Said teammate had clearly had seen better days. Aside from a multitude of blooming bruises, there was a gash over his swollen eye and his lip drooled blood onto the collar of his once light gray shirt. He was strung up by his wrists with thick and filthy rope that cut deep into his skin, the tips of his work boots barely grazing the debris covered ground. The first man, Colin Bodok, gleefully spun a bat in his hands while the second man, Paul Copel, egged him on.

The last few pieces of the profile slid into place, and Bright was convinced the first victim was a crime of opportunity more than thoroughly planned. A former Marine turned security guard, an image of authority that both of the men felt the need to act out against for some perceived wrong. They had fully intended on a beatdown, they just cared less about who it was they were going to beat than the act itself. The guard had probably tried to stop them from entering a restricted place, or maybe even just questioned why they were present at the given location, and it was enough to set them off. Then came JT investigating the same, and they had a secondary opportunity pretty much thrown right in their laps.

While that part might be important for the actual prosecution of the case, currently it was far more important to get the good Detective Tarmel to some trained medical professionals, and to get Bodok and Copel into custody. To that end, Gil and Dani circled around to opposite positions while he hung back, supposedly out of the line of fire yet ready to make a call if required.

Gil shouted out instructions that both identified themselves and ordered the men to step back and away from JT. That went about as well as could be expected, which was to say Copel drew a gun on Gil while Bodok got in one last swing at JT. Dani made her presence known, gun drawn as well, and Bodok showed he had more than just a bat as a weapon when he dropped that and reached for his waistband.

Bodok didn’t aim for Dani though. He repositioned himself to use Tarmel as a shield of sorts against her, blocking a clean shot, and then raised his weapon to JT’s ribcage. At that range, there was little chance he would miss. It was a standoff, and one that would not end well for anyone involved. If Dani moved to aim at Copel, Bodok would shoot JT. If Gil dared to shift his gaze to Bodok, Copel would have a clear shot at Gil. Two on two with a living shield and a lot of potential bullets involved.

Except neither Bodok or Copel knew about Bright yet. 

He texted for backup, knowing not to verbally speak lest it give everything away and set off a series of events he really did not want to be responsible for. Then he looked for a means, any means, to help versus harm. There was nothing in the immediate vicinity, but he remembered something in the room prior. He snuck back, careful not to make a single sound, and found his prize. The glass around it was mostly shattered, but he almost nicked the back of his hand versus letting the heavy wood and metal splinter it further and risk it tinkling to the ground. 

He thought of angles as he returned, and knew his original location was probably the best, or at least as close to the best as he was going to get. Behind Gil, opposite of Dani, and with a decently clear view of JT. Bodok’s back was to him as well, but there was a chance Copel might see him if he happened to glance in the right direction. He approached anyway, and gave Dani credit for barely raising her eyebrows at him. To make sure the attention was on both her and Gil and not what was going on in the background, she spoke again, louder this time, and ordered them both to put the guns down before they did something they regretted.

Bodok took the bait and began a diatribe about how the last thing he would regret would be the deaths of three more cogs in the machine of something or another. Bright honestly tuned him out and tried to get into position. JT chose that moment to fully open his eyes or, more accurately, eye as the left one was pretty much stuck shut. He saw what Bright held and slowly, deliberately, nodded. The movement didn’t even catch the attention of the would-be murderers. 

Bright’s own movements most definitely did. He threw the fire axe with all of his might, aim true as ever. The rusted metal was not the sharpest, and the weight was a little different than what he was used to, but it still managed to slice through the thick rope just above JT’s hands. The detective had timed his own actions just right and kicked outwards, feet not quite hitting Bodok but the rest of his mass twisting and lurching enough to tackle him to the ground. 

A shot rang out and there was a flurry of commotion and then both of the suspects were thoroughly contained and Malcolm rushed further into the area to make certain for himself that everyone was safe and sound, or at least as sound as they could be in JT’s case. 

“Who shot?” Gil demanded after he secured Copel in cuffs. He was frantic, worried. “Who shot? Are any of you three hit?”

“It was Mr. Louisville Slugger’s gun,” JT called from where he was collapsed in a graceless heap on the ground. His voice wasn’t much more than a groan, but he managed to ask, “You good, Powell?”

“Not a scratch,” she confirmed. She had Bodok as restrained as Copel at her feet, but dared to look over at her partner when she said, “The same can’t be said for you.”

JT waived her off with his still bound hands. “I’ll live,” he promised her. “Living’s going to suck for a few days and Tally’s not going to let me out of her sight, but I’ll live.”

Gil pulled out a pocket knife and handed it to Dani, knowing enough not to hand it to Malcolm. JT made jokes about all of his teammates coming for him with sharp objects, but sighed in relief when his severely abraded wrists were free from their confines. When the other officers came rushing in after confirming everything was all clear, all three of his teammates eyed Bright doubtingly. 

“What?” he defended himself. “I called for backup!”

JT just shook his head and snorted. “One in a row, man. One in a row.”


	5. Malcolm

He was never letting him out of his sight again. No, that wouldn’t work as he himself needed to sleep even if the kid did not. Maybe he could install a tracker, or an invisible fence around him to keep him contained when he needed rest. If nothing else, there was a fair chance of multiple people volunteering for shifts in the near future. If there was a future.

They were investigating the latest murder spree. Five professionals, all aged between thirty and thirty-five, two women and three men thus far. All found in the only slightly rumpled but otherwise decently crisp expensive suits they had gone missing in only hours before. All with neatly lettered signs pinned to those suits listing their supposed crimes. All dead via strangulation from hanging.

The fifth victim was Alonzo Cortez, found by hikers who caught sight of a glint that turned out to be the expensive watch he still wore. His crime was listed as adultery as well as funding the drugs of his mistress. His wife, when contacted, claimed they had an open marriage and she knew said mistress regularly smoked marijuana for her horrible anxiety attacks but was squeaky clean beyond that. She was actually worried that the other woman would be next as she tried to call her and there was no answer.

“Andrea answers at all hours, barely sleeps,” Mirabel Cortez explained. “Sweet girl, but she just can’t get a break in life.”

Gil understood knowing someone like that far too well. He glanced over to his own can’t-get-a-break guy to find him nowhere in sight. He had been right beside him, or so he thought. Knowing the kid, something tiny and probably missed by the swarms of techs caught his eye and he went to investigate it, with or without warning anyone else in the process. “Where’s Bright?” he asked the world around him, knowing either his detectives or one of the techs should have an answer.

“Dude was right here, I swear,” JT huffed.

Dani pulled out her phone and shook her head. “No texts, but the app shows him close enough that we should be on top of him, or at least his phone,” she confirmed.

Gil snorted at that. “You track him?”

She just smirked in response. “Wouldn’t you? I told him it was so I would know if I should pick him up at his mom’s or his place and he bought it.” She flipped over to her usual contacts and pressed a button. The screen lit up with a picture of Bright’s less than amused face from some random incident Gil couldn’t remember the details of but, more importantly, the clearing sounded with a distinctive ring.

“Got ‘em,” JT confirmed. He strolled a little too quickly to be casual towards the sound, all the more quickly when Dani confirmed it flipped to voicemail and tried again. They found the phone in some bushes just off the main path. The bushes themselves were thoroughly trampled, and it would not take an expert tracker to follow the trail given how much greenery was disturbed.

Dani pocketed both her phone and Bright’s and Gil tried to ignore the way his heart beat a little too fast against his ribcage. He knew he tended to be overprotective with his team, and with Bright in particular. It was simply his nature. Seeing Tarmel pull his weapon and Powell follow suit did possibly comfort him by at least letting him know he was not the only one on high alert at the moment.

“I swear, if his skinny ass followed some damned bird,” JT grumbled, barely audible, but the rest of him was clearly focused on the task at hand. A task that very clearly involved something far more ominous than birds.

They found Andrea first. Bound and barely conscious, a goose egg on her temple helping to explain how she got that way. Just like the others, she still wore a dress appropriate for a high-end office setting, though it was now smeared with dirt. Just like the others, there was a sign pinned to her with her crimes. “She’s dazed, but we got to her in time. Looks like she dragged herself quite a way though,” Dani confirmed, which meant something, or more likely someone, had interrupted the killer before he could complete his task.

There was movement off to the side, about fifty or so paces away. Gil squinted but it was JT who bolted after a man in dirty jeans and a dark green flannel. The chase was short-lived and they had him on the ground and cuffed in a matter of moments. They riffled through his backpack to find rope that matched what had been used on the victims as well as a crumpled folder with what could charitably be called dossiers for each person found thus far plus more that hopefully were still living and breathing.

“Where’s Bright?” Gil demanded.

“The guy in the fancy suit who interrupted justice being served?” the man at his feet spat. Worryingly, he started to chuckle. “He’s finding his own kind of justice right now.”

His eyes betrayed him though and he glanced back towards where they first found Andrea. First responders were already headed her way, so he sent JT to hand him off to them as well while they looked for their missing profiler.

It didn’t take long.

There was a thick copse of trees only a short distance away from where Andrea had been found. Retracing the crushed foliage in the direction opposite of where Bright’s phone had been left led through that copse and to a sight Gil truly wished he had never seen. There, swinging from a thick branch of an old oak tree, was Bright. His body was lax but his face still a vibrant red that had not yet faded, dark veins still puffed at his temples. The noose was tight around his neck, fingers of his hands hooked through it as if he had been trying to loosen it enough to grant him one more breath. A breath that very clearly had not come.

Gil collapsed to the dirt with a sob and Dani skidded to a stop beside him, nearly tripping over him. He knew precisely when she saw what he did as he heard her gasp, “Oh my god!” She was close enough to him that he could feel her legs start to shake, but the sound of blood rushing through his ears nearly blocked out her whisper of, “We’re too late.”

He forced his eyes back open, forced himself to look up at the kid who saved his life all those years ago, forced himself to look at the kid who he had failed to repay the same kindness. “We need to get him down,” he ordered.

“Sir, it’s a crime scene. We need to document…”

“We need to get him down!” he repeated, and knew she was not going to stop him, disrupting a crime scene or no.

There was a ladder to the side, obviously used to help their perp get the rope high enough to toss up and over the branch. Gil could almost see it, Bright already choked out, the rope tugged from the other side to drag him backwards and upwards before it was secured into place. He hoped the kid was unconscious at that point but, based on clear signs of him fighting his fate to the end, he kind of doubted it.

He yanked the ladder upright and it settled with a loud clang. It was old and not in the best shape and he tried to force the supports to lock into place but was distracted by Powell’s very urgent exclamation of, “Sir!”

He glanced over to her to find her with her hand over her mouth in an expression of pure disbelief. He followed the gaze of her wide eyes upwards to find another gaze, this one far more blurry and bloodshot and clearly not focused.

JT said it better than him as he approached the scene and uttered a long, drawn out, “Holy shit…”

Gil slammed the ladder into position, locked or no, and knew his team would steady it if needed. He was halfway up when he collided with an extremely weak kick of a wingtip shoe. He clambered up a few more rungs and then wrapped his arms around the barely flailing legs and hefted upwards, trying to relieve what little pressure he could as he begged, “Hold on, kid, we’re going to get you down.”

The ladder rocked beneath his feet but Dani held on tight. JT raced over to where the length of rope had been secured and sliced halfway through it before he shouted, “You’re going to need a better grip when this thing goes!”

Gil forced himself upwards just a little bit more, hands shifting from legs to waist, feeling the jerk of the body in his arms as the weight and the pull against the rope shifted as well. “Do it!” he called. 

He had barely as second, if that, before the full weight of one Malcolm Bright slumped against him. The ladder tilted tenuously before JT ran back over to help secure it. Dani rushed up the rungs beside Gil and helped maneuver Bright’s uncooperative limbs into something that could be bodily carried down. Together, they made it nearly to the bottom before the ladder shifted again and JT took the bulk of the weight from them. They both hopped off before the old thing could crash, and immediately knelt down in the dirt and muck to where Bright was now laid out.

Dani unhooked Bright’s fingers and pulled them free from the rope and JT loosened the noose and yanked it off entirely to reveal the damage done. His neck was nearly black with contusions, highlighted with rough tears of red where the rope had rubbed. Save for one place. On either side of a barely scuffed Adam’s apple were three elongated bruises the width and shape of Bright’s own fingers. He had suffered a severe but not total depletion of oxygen and incredible strain on his neck and spine, but had managed to stop his hyoid from being crushed, and likely saved his own life that way, at least for long enough for the others to do the rest.

“How…?” Gil asked when he managed to breathe again.

“Tried to meditate. Hoped for best,” Bright replied, his voice little more than a croak.

Gil simply shook his head and ruffled the kid’s hair. There would be time enough to yell and scold and everything else later. For now, what was important was that Bright was alive, the killer was in custody, and that medics were on their way.

In the end, Bright suffered severe bruising of several of his cervical vertebrae, multiple pulled muscles and tendons, two sprained fingers, and a throat swollen enough to put him on a liquid diet for a couple of days. Which meant that he was back in the office within the week, high collars doing nothing to hide the dark damage done, complete with tiny pinprick lines from the protective collar he had been required to wear until the x-rays came back to show that miraculously nothing was broken. The capillaries of his eyes had not yet recovered, meaning there was more red than white around the pale blue, and he was quite the sight.

“You can’t even eat yet, go home,” Gil ordered, or at least tried to.

Bright held up a large mug of tea as though that would suffice. When Dani came in with a smoothie and JT with a protein shake, he knew it was going to be a losing battle. This one, unlike the one only a handful of days before, he didn’t mind quite so much.


	6. +1 - Jessica

Jessica was at her wit’s end. Not one but six separate charity heads were due to arrive within the hour and neither of her children were to be found. Dinner was prepped, hor d’oeuvres at the ready, and a multiple bottles of a truly delectable wine were chilled to just the right temperature.

She looked to her watch. And then to her phone as though the golden piece was lying to her. She texted Ainsley and received a near instant promise that she was on her way but traffic was horrible. That was a clear lie as her daughter never texted and drove, but it at least meant that she was likely to leave her apartment soon and might even make it there before the guests.

She knew not to simply text Malcolm as he would just ignore it. She dialed his number and, as soon as he answered, greeted him with, “And what horrible crime can only be solved by the fine profiling skills of my son today?”

There was a wail of a siren in the background as though to prove her point, but at least he had the good grace to apologize and say, “I will be there as soon as I can. Something came up with a case and…” The rest was muffled save for a shout to get down and then a sizable thud that would be better described as an explosion. There was a cough, a groan, and then Malcolm returned to the line with an admission of, “Okay, there is a chance I will be a little late. But, on the up side, I did save the mayor?”

She rolled her eyes and said her goodbyes. A snap of her fingers and one of the maids was at her side. “Please have one of my son’s suits pressed and ready for him when he arrives. The dark blue one, with the purple Ricci tie,” she directed. Justina nodded and left to do just that, but she stopped her with one more request, “Please also make sure his room is stocked with first aid supplies. He is coming from work.”

Justina poorly hid her smirk at the addition but, to be fair, so did Jessica. 

She resumed her pacing and adjusted the bow on one of the floral arrangements one more time as she muttered, “The mayor? I didn’t even vote for that man. Truly… If my children believe they can leave me hanging in the lurch – again – over something as flimsy as that? Don’t they realize this is important?”


End file.
